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4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

alecmuffett.com

411–420 of 817 posts

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can legally order pipe tobacco and cigars on the internet in the US without showing ID. When I was a kid you could do it with wine too, and I doubt that's changed. I don't find it to be a problem.

Depends on the state. You absolutely cannot order alcohol online in Kentucky

buywinesonline.com (random retailer I found) says they do

Buy Wines Online currently does not ship alcohol to AL, MI, MS, UT, HI, AK

Says it requires an "adult signature" but anyone who's signed for fedex/ups knows they don't check your ID. I can say, when I was in high school, they did not check...

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have 'jurisdiction' because it applies to the citizens: it is offering a service to UK citizens. If I had a website operated outside of the US, where you can download US citizens private medical records and phone conversations, I would be liable to breaking US law. If you do not want to be held accountable to a regions laws, then you do not offer a service to or deal with data that relates to that regions cit…

Someone has to be willing to extradite. I'm sure China, Russia, and Iran would love to prosecute all those pesky political dissidents abroad. I'll be pretty shocked if someone ever gets extradited out of the US for not showing a cookie banner.

I agree and in the majority of the cases 'enforcement' is usually just a block at the ISP level.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have 'jurisdiction' because it applies to the citizens: it is offering a service to UK citizens. If I had a website operated outside of the US, where you can download US citizens private medical records and phone conversations, I would be liable to breaking US law. If you do not want to be held accountable to a regions laws, then you do not offer a service to or deal with data that relates to that regions cit…

Simply offering a service to UK citizens isn't enough to provide jurisdiction. If I run a lemonade stand, and a UK citizen walks up a pays a dollar for a glass of lemonade, then that doesn't give the UK jurisdiction over the lemonade stand. That's what's happening here - a webserver is operating entirely out of the UK, with no nexus. UK citizens send requests to it - just like all other countries citizens do, so eith…

> If I run a lemonade stand, and a UK citizen walks up a pays a dollar for a glass of lemonade, then that doesn't give the UK jurisdiction over the lemonade stand.

It does... to correct your example, the UK citizen is paying a dollar for the lemonade while in the UK.

Are you saying that if I had a website hosted in Russia that pretended to be your bank and stole all your money from phishing that is perfectly legal?

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That falls under libel laws, which is a civil tort. There isn't an administrative or ministerial apparatus fining you based on the presumption that you violated a speech code.

So it's absolute until it's something you don't like. Gotcha.

You have to prove that an actual crime or harm was involved. There is some nuance there, but there absolutely is not a censorious bureaucrat issuing warning letters and fines for things they don't like.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#415

Is there a solution where we can compel parental control to be enabled by default on kids phones? That would seem to be least intrusive option. Using the internet in the UK/EU is such a horrible experience, every cookie pop-up is a reminder how badly thought out these rules are.

I'm happy to have popups with "Reject All" button. If there is no "Reject All" button I close site immediately.

Cookie regulations are perfectly Ok, businesses which want to add 429 vendors and data processors to simple internet shop or corporate blog is not.

If you use cookies only for legitimate basic local functionality (like login and shopping cart on online shop site) you SHOULD NOT have any popups, there is exemption for such use cases in the regulations. Only if you want to sell data or pass it for processing to third party you need popup. Simply don't.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#416

I think the premise of this is simple, and a lot of people seem to not be understanding this... The UK can make a law and apply it however they see fit. 4Chan is providing a service to UK people (a website you can access) and is not implementing the law. Ultimately the UK cannot enforce this law until money destined to/from 4Chan passes through the UK or people associated with the site visit UK territories. In practi…

> why wouldn't it have the power to hold that entity accountable? If I transmit insults of dear leader Kim Jung Un on amateur radio, then those radio waves will reach DPRK. I likely would be breaking DPRK law. Why wouldn't they have the power? Same reason my decree that guns are now banned in the US is not even refuted, but ignored. 4chan has no obligation or even reason to even respond to the UK except as entertainm…

I think you are confusing breaking a law, and enforceability. I agree with the gist of your argument though, the UK cannot _force_ a US only company, but it doesn't change the fact it is breaking UK law.

> I likely would be breaking DPRK law. Why wouldn't they have the power?

They do as a sovereign nation. But what most people seem to be missing is that you're not going to DPRK and the US Government doesn't care so you can go about your life breaking DPRK law as much as you want.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. Ofcom in their reply make their point clear: "The [Online Safety] Act explicitly grants Ofcom the legal authority to regulate online safety for individuals in the United Kingdom [...]" They are stating that companies operating in the UK and providing services to UK individuals, are required to conform with UK regulations in relation to those services, under UK law. As an American business, you can choose t…

>As an American business, you can choose to ignore that, but that has consequences if any of your board of directors ever sets foot in the UK. The board of directors for a private company is generally secret in the US. Only the "manager" aka president/CEO/whoever at the top is generally named publicly, as well as legal agent.

I suspect that MI6 could find a US private company's directors names if they wanted to. We're not talking about nuclear launch codes here.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply offering a service to UK citizens isn't enough to provide jurisdiction. If I run a lemonade stand, and a UK citizen walks up a pays a dollar for a glass of lemonade, then that doesn't give the UK jurisdiction over the lemonade stand. That's what's happening here - a webserver is operating entirely out of the UK, with no nexus. UK citizens send requests to it - just like all other countries citizens do, so eith…

> If I run a lemonade stand, and a UK citizen walks up a pays a dollar for a glass of lemonade, then that doesn't give the UK jurisdiction over the lemonade stand. It does... to correct your example, the UK citizen is paying a dollar for the lemonade while in the UK. Are you saying that if I had a website hosted in Russia that pretended to be your bank and stole all your money from phishing that is perfectly legal?

>Are you saying that if I had a website hosted in Russia that pretended to be your bank and stole all your money from phishing that is perfectly legal?

Website hosted in US publishing truth about Ukraine war - even calling it a war is already a felony in Russia - is it legal or illegal?

I'm personally against stealing money, and i'm for calling a war a war, yet how do we formally codify that into law - there are 200 countries and at any given moment, especially while online, you're probably violating some law of some country. Before internet globalization, the geography based jurisdiction was such an objective approach. Now it is more like "catch me if you can" which is obviously not a solid foundation to build on. Like that plane that had emergency landing in Minsk, and the Belorussian dissident flying on that plane was arrested by the Belorussian police. And many here on HN were critical of MBS when Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul - what if our plane has to make an emergency landing in Riyadh ...

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